Tantalus

Tantalus

In Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Pluto (daughter of Himantes). He was a Lydian king, highly honored and prosperous, but, because he divulged to mortals the secrets of the gods, he was plunged up to the chin in a river of Hades, a tree hung with clusters of fruit being just above his head. As every time he tried to drink the waters receded from him, and as the fruit was just out of reach, he suffered agony from thirst, hunger, and unfulfilled anticipation.

Hence our verb, to tantalize, to excite a hope and disappoint it; and hence the name tantalus applied to a lock-up spirit chest in which the bottles are quite visible but quite un-get-at-able without the key.

No comments: